South America, new world

We’ve only begun to explore the South American continent in 2014.

Prior to that time the furthest we had been was to the Caribbean, which we “classify” as being part of north America. Though technically it should be on its own as Central America. We tend to use the continental prescription of segregating geographical locations, so that’s it.

Relatively unknown to this part of the world (the Eastern hemisphere), south America is as exotic to us as we are to them. The distance and lack of direct connections do not help. While we have seen at some travel exhibitions some of the country booths, there was not a lot of information in the way of the how’s and what’s of journeying there from Asia.

Melvin’s interest in this continent arose from history more than anything else. It has been challenging to find material on Mesoamerican history and actually being there in the flesh helps one to appreciate it more. We have learnt that Machu Picchu is not a “last stand” of the Incas against the Spanish colonialists but rather an abandoned city. Yes it is still debated if the city held religious significance or was it simply one of many “retreats” for the royal family. Nonetheless, hearing from local guides supplement the literature that one finds on the web and also in the printed materials.

This one journey we took in late 2014 lead us through Peru and eventually ended on Easter island, 3500km away from the mainland. It was too short in our opinion on hindsight, limited by our own inhibition to stay longer (combination of work and personal reasons). But at least w have started the ball rolling and we are hoping it will gain traction as connections between the Asian continent and South America grow.

In the short 2½ weeks, we took almost 1300 photos and nearly 60 videos. Not to steal any thunder from our country and journey logs, we will defer you to click onto those for more on our memories gleaned from this singular trip.

Get our latest posts!

Next journey

Bangkok!February 14th, 2018

Back to the city of Angels again! Seems like this is becoming one of the annual pilgrimages aside from Japan...

What’s next

Having finished the series on micro states of Europe, we are now moving onto the some of the other parts of Europe that we explored both during the time when we lived in Holland, and when coming in from afar.